Import Review: Ibiza Undead (2017)

"Ibiza Unfunny."

For those of us who love raunchy teen comedies like The Inbetweeners, and who adore zombie films, a movie like Ibiza Undead sounds like a brilliant idea; you get some dorky guys, some smoking hot girls, send them on vacation to a gorgeous paradise, and have them fight for their lives against hordes of undead whist cracking off filthy jokes and one-liners, and trying to get laid at every turn.

Well, the idea sounds great, and they really tried with this one, but Ibiza Undead doesn't really make it to good side of the the funny-meets-bloody fence.

Emily Atack is in it though, so that makes it watchable enough. For the most part.

In the midst of a worldwide zombie epidemic, a group of British teens decide to head to Ibiza to party, because no matter how bad things get in the world, kids will always need to get messed up and have as much sex as possible. And honestly, why not do it in Ibiza if you're going to do it?

AH, PARTY GIRLS.

Big Jim, Alex, and Az are three lovable losers who just want to meet some girls. Or, as Big Jim puts it (about 300 times throughout the movie), shag some sluts and bitches. Alex's older sister and her hot friend, as well as Alex's hot ex-girlfriend are along for the ride, so the stage is set... but they want to meet some guys who aren't gimps, so the it's not long before the fish out of water sexual hilarity ensues!

THAT BIKINI THO...

And of course it's also not long before the zombie apocalypse of Ibiza ensues, which makes the whole "let's get laid, bruv" aspect of the trip a moot point... or maybe it makes it that much more important? It's one of those. Whichever one it is, the partiers must band together if they're ever going to escape Ibiza alive.

TONE IT DOWN, CONCHITA!

Ibiza Undead is a decent enough zombie flick that boasts a gorgeous location, some great bloody visuals, and some sexy ladies behaving badly, but doesn't really meld the world of comedy and horror together all that well.

And that's the main problem with this movie: it's supposed to be a comedy, and it isn't all that funny. Maybe that stems from the fact that the characters, and the funny bits that they try to drop on us, were written in the shallow end of the quality pool. The worst had to be Big Jim, who was so over-the-top and unfunny, that we honestly wondered how it all went wrong. Stiffer was funny in American Pie, as was Jay in The Inbetweeners (which this movie is clearly modeled after), but the attempt to recreate that same kind of vulgar-yet-lovable character here came nowhere close to that level of good.

Emily Atack was surprisingly good in this one though. Where we just expected her to be a vapid tart with no depth, her character was actually given a bit of substance, and she milked it for all it was worth. Vagina Lipkiss Algina Lipskis did a nice job in her supporting role as well. Everyone else, meh.

WHERE'S SCOOBY?

There are actually some good gore gags throughout this one.

THE FIRST GAY ZOMBIE EVER? YOU DECIDE.

Lots of hot chicks in bikinis, and Emily Atack shares a snog with Algina Lipskis, but for a raunchy sex comedy, this one is very light on the visceral raunch.

SO MUCH POTENTIAL...

Ibiza Undead is a fun enough flick, but it just doesn't offer enough bloody bits to please Horror fans, and it's not very funny at all, even if a few jokes do land here and there.

Overall, this is a movie that you might want to check out when it hits Netflix and the like, and save your DVD $$$ for a rainy day. Or a better movie.

C-

Ibiza Undead is available on Import DVD now. *Region-Free player required.

Apparently, Ibiza is the place to go to find lovely ladies.

VOD Review: The Black Room (2017)

"I'm pretty sure this movie is supposed to be a Horror Comedy, but I can't tell."

I'm not really sure how you mix Comedy into a Horror story about an Incubus who molests and rapes women to death, but if you're going to try, you damn sure better make the comedy bits work.

Or I guess you need to make sure that you go all-out with the exploitation bits.

this movie doesn't really do either. It tries to be funny, and it gets sort of sexual (to an extent), but it kind of  dwells in that safe area between bland and balls-out crazy, when it should have just gone full-blown into "WTF" territory.

The film opens with a supernatural force molesting a hot chick while she sleeps, while the girl's Nana, Lin Shaye, yells "You can't have her!" They somehow both end up in the basement where they're both sucked into a sex vortex, presumably to get it on with the Sex Demon that lives there. Turns out that decades earlier, a wild gang of hippies conjured an Incubus (Sex Demon) in that very basement, and it's been trapped in the "Black Room" ever since.

AT LEAST THE SEX DEMON HAS GOOD TASTE.

Flash forward two years where a couple, Jennifer and Paul, have just bought the house. Everything is great at first until Paul wanders into the basement and finds himself possessed by the Sex Demon, which turns him into a horny, woman-hungry pig with no manners. Paul's not the only one who the Incubus goes after. No, it gets Jennifer to hump the washing machine, and even diddles her while she's taking a bath.

YOU KNEW WHAT THIS WAS.

No woman is safe from his carnal advances, including Jennifer's sister, their friends, and anyone else who Incubus Paul want to seduce. Can they stop the Incubus before it bangs them all to death? Will Lin Shaye save the day with her magic plate? Shouldn't there be more nudity for a movie about a Sex Demon? Far be it from us to spoil anything from you here, but the answer to that last question is a resounding YES!

HE'S OPEN FOR BUSINESS, LADIES.

First, let's cover the good stuff. The practical effects in the movie are great at times, and are definitely bizarre in a good way. The cast is great, with Retro Hotties Natasha Henstridge, Tiffany Shepis and Dominique Swain joining new age Hotties Augie Duke and Elissa Dowling for a shameless good time. And the creeper heating & cooling guy was funny as hell. 

The main problem I had with this movie was that it tried to do this odd black comedy thing that didn't work very well. It started off in promising fashion, with some spirit terrorizing a half naked girl, and then Lin Shaye showing up and doing her best "I'll banish you to the nether!" routine, but as soon as the main guy got possessed and went around sexually harassing people, it just fell flat. The guy, Lukas Hassel, just wasn't funny enough to pull it off.

Had they played his character straight, and just made him go after women to feed his Demonic urges, it may have worked better overall. It would have been way skeevier and exploitative, but it would have at least felt cohesive and effective.

And honestly, you've got Natasha Henstridge and Dominique Swain in a movie about a Sex Demon, and neither of them get naked? Not that they need to, that's their prerogative, but what the hell?

It's like the whole thing was half sexplotation, and half made-for-Lifetime drama, and it didn't really do much with either side of that coin.

LIN SHAYE MUST HAVE OWED SOMEONE A FAVOR OR SOMETHING. THAT'S THE ONLY WAY TO EXPLAIN WHAT SHE WAS DOING IN THIS MOVIE.

Once again, the practical effects in this movie are great, and they get pretty messy.

THAT'S A DEMON PENIS.

There's nudity and sexuality abound in this one, because it's about a rapey Demon.

THAT'S THE STUFF.

The Black Room isn't a great movie, but it's a shamelessly fun one, on a visceral level. It's full of hot chicks, nudity, and some great practical effects, which tend to even out the lame story, uneven acting, and bad dialogue. If you like sleazy B-grade flicks, you might just have fun with this one.

C-

The Black Room is available now on VOD.

Natasha, Augie, and Dominique. Those are totally stripper names.

VOD Review: Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies (2017)

"Nein."

The title Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies gives you the impression that some wacky, flesh-eating hi-jinks are in store, and that you're probably going to be in for a stupid good time.

Or so you'd think.

We really thought that we'd be getting something along the lines of the Dead Snow flicks with this one; you know, some clever lines, some inappropriate humor, plenty of awesome gore... but alas, this snowy Euro zombie flick is no Dead Snow.

Not even close.

Steve is a cocky snowboarder who doesn't want to grow up, no matter how many times his crazy-hot girlfriend, Branka, tells him that he needs to. He's scheduled to meet a fan on a remote mountaintop for a photo op, and he decides that he's going to not only jump from a helicopter and board down the mountain to meet them, but that he's going to do so naked... which turns out to to be the worst idea ever, because his super fan is a 9-year-old girl.

YEAH. YOUR BOYFRIEND SCARRED THAT POOR GIRL FOR LIFE.

Not only does his little stunt lose his team their sponsor, but furious at his immaturity, Branka dumps him. They're also told to leave the mountain, which proves to be impossible, because someone takes off with their helicopter, leaving them stranded. At least there's a Biergarten nearby where they can drink and dance.

IF SHE FLEW THEM THERE, THEN WHO MADE OFF WITH THEIR HELICOPTER?

There's also the matter of a local entrepreneur who is trying to fight global warming with a machine that makes neon green sludge (?!?), which ends up popping a leak, spraying a guy in the face, and turning him into a zombie who loves to dance to shitty music. Of course, the dance fever zombie ends up infecting nearly everyone else on the mountaintop, which leaves our bumbling snowboarding crew to fight for their lives... using their snowboards.

THE DANCE SCENE.

Where we expected this movie to be funny, most of its jokes ended up feeling forced and only mildly amusing at times to us. I mean, I guess some people will get a wacky kick out of two snowboarders doing stunts that decapitate and eviscerate the living dead that are trying to kill them, but all I could do was shake my head and ask "why?" during it all.

There are also no zombies wearing lederhosen in this movie, which was a bummer.

I liked the cast, especially the super cute Gabriela Marcinková. That's something, I guess.

Look, this is a valiant little effort that just isn't particularly funny or even remotely scary. If this movie had come out, say, 15 years ago, and we hadn't seen the same thing done better so many times over that same span, it would have probably amused us more. It had its moments, but it had plenty of swings and misses as well.

THAT WAS PRETTY MUCH OUR REACTION TO THIS MOVIE.

There are plenty of fun gore gags to be had once the zombie action kicks in towards the end of the movie. Of course, most of them are fairly tongue-in-cheek, but hey, at least it's gore. 

SNOWBOARD CARNAGE.

You'd think an Austrian Horror flick would have some gratuitous nudity on display, what with Europe being more progressive when it comes to that kind of thing and all, but nein, no naked Mädchen to be seen here.

SWISS MISS HAS HAD A ROUGH LIFE.

This is a movie that plenty of people are going to have fun with, but it just didn't work for us like we had hoped that it would. It was a decent-enough diversion though, so don't let us stop you from checking it out... just know that it's more cheesy than it is funny.

C-

Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies is available now on VOD.

Gabriela Marcinková is one Czech beauty who we need to see more of.